Media references to
territories administered by Israel since theJune
1967 war now routinely describe them as "occupied."
Yet, thisdescription conveniently
overlooks the pertinent history of these lands,especially
the authentic Israeli claims supported by international law, theunwitting manner in which West Bank and Gaza fell
into Israel's hands aftersustained Arab
aggression and the overwhelming security considerationsinvolved.
Contrary to widely disseminated but wholly erroneousallegations;
a sovereign State of Palestine did not exist before 1967 or1948;
a State of Palestine was not promised by authoritative UN SecurityCouncil Resolution 242; indeed, a State of
Palestine has never existed.

As a nonstate legal entity,
Palestine ceased to exist in 1948, whenGreat
Britain relinquished its League of Nations mandate. When, during
the1948 - 1949 war of independence, the
West Bank and Gaza came underillegal
control of Jordan and Egypt respectively, these aggressor nationsdid not put an end to an already-existing state.
From the Biblical Period(ca. 1350 BC to
586 BC) to the British Mandate (1918 - 1948), the land namedby
the Romans after the ancient Philistines was controlled only by non-Palestinian elements.

Significantly, however, a
continuous chain of Jewish possession ofthe
land was legally recognized after World War I at the San Remo PeaceConference of April 1920. There, a binding
treaty was signed in which GreatBritain
was given mandatory authority over Palestine (the area had beenruled by the Ottoman Turks since 1516) to prepare
it to become the"national home for
the Jewish people." Palestine, according to the treaty,comprised territories encompassing what are now
the state of Jordan andIsrael, including
West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and Gaza. Present dayIsrael,
including West Bank and Gaza, comprises only twenty-two percent ofPalestine as defined and ratified at the San Remo
Peace Conference.

In 1922, Great Britain
unilaterally and illegally split off 78 percentof
the lands promised to the Jews -- all of Palestine east of the JordanRiver -- and gave it to Abdullah, the
non-Palestinian son of the Sharif ofMecca.
Eastern Palestine now took the name Transjordan, which it retaineduntil April 1949, when it was renamed as Jordan.
From the moment of itscreation,
Transjordan was closed to all Jewish migration and settlement, aclear betrayal of the British promise in the
Balfour Declaration of 1917and a
contravention of its Mandatory obligations. On July 20, 1951, aPalestinian Arab assassinated King Abdullah for
his hostility toPalestinian aspirations
and concerns.

Several years prior to
Abdullah's killing, in 1947, the newly-formedUnited
Nations, rather than designate the entire land west of the JordanRiver as the Jewish national homeland, enacted a
second partition.Ironically, because this
second fission again gave unfair advantage to theArabs,
Jewish leaders accepted the painful judgment while Arab states didnot. On May 15, 1948, exactly one day after
the State of Israel came intoexistence,
Azzam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League, declared toa
tiny new nation founded upon the ashes of the Holocaust:
"This will be awar of extermination
and a momentous massacre...." This declaration, ofcourse,
has been at the very heart of all subsequent Arab policies towardIsrael.

In 1967, almost twenty years
after Israel's entry into the communityof
nations, the Jewish State -- as a result of its stunning militaryvictory over Arab aggressor states -- gained
unintended controlover West Bank and
Gaza. Although the idea of the inadmissibility of theacquisition
of territory by war is enshrined in the UN Charter, thereexisted
no authoritative sovereign to whom the territories could be"returned."
Israel could hardly be expected to transfer the territoriesback
to Jordan and Egypt, which had exercised unauthorized and generallycruel control since the Arab-initiated war of
"extermination" in 1948-49.Moreover,
the idea of Palestinian self-determination was only justbeginning
to emerge after the Six Day War, and was not even codified in UNSecurity Council Resolution 242, which was
adopted on November 22, 1967.For their
part, the Arab states convened a summit in Khartoum in August1967,
concluding: "No peace with Israel, no recognition of
Israel, nonegotiations with it...."

Resolution 242 has been
generally misinterpreted. The formulaadvanced
by the Resolution is patently one of "peace for land," not
"landfor peace." The
Resolution grants to every state in the Middle East "theright
to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries."
It points,therefore, to peace before
territorial withdrawal to "recognizedboundaries."

Security Council Resolution
242 is a balanced whole. The right ofself-determination
of the Palestinians does not appear in the Resolution;an
international conference is never mentioned; the parties referred toinclude only states, not insurgent/terror
organizations; and the phrase"territories
occupied" is neither preceded by "the," nor is it
followed by"on all fronts."

These have been the essential
historic reasons why the territoriesare
not "occupied." Israel's right to reject this
improper description alsostems from its
incontrovertible legal right to security and self-defense.
Because transformation of West Bank (Judea/Samaria) andGaza
into an Arab state of Palestine would threaten the very existence ofIsrael, the Jewish State is under no current
obligation to relinquishcontrol.
Its rights, in this regard, are peremptory.

International law is not a
suicide pact. Anyone who takes the troubleto
look at a map of the region will discover that Israel and the
territories,comprising an area less than
half the size of San Bernadino County inCalifornia,
cannot afford to yield its already minimal "strategicdepth."
In this connection, Israel should take little comfort from thepromise
of Palestinian demilitarization. Indeed, should the governmentof Palestine choose to invite foreign armies or
territories on to itsterritory (possibly
after the original national government had beendisplaced
or overthrown by more militantly anti-Israel forces), it could doso not only without practical difficulties, but
also without necessarilyviolating
international law.

The threat posed by an
independent Palestinian state would alsoimpact
directly upon Jerusalem's nuclear strategy. For the moment,
Israel-- still buffered from a hot
eastern border by the West Bank -- can affordto
keep its bomb "in the basement." If, however, this
territory becamethe heart of
"Palestine," Israel would almost certainly have to move from"deliberate ambiguity" to disclosure, a
shift that could substantiallyimprove the
Jewish state's nuclear deterrence posture but could alsoenlarge
the chances of a nuclear war should this posture fail.

Israel does not hold any
"occupied" territories. It is critical thatthe
Government of Israel recognize this, and that it never accept such anincorrect characterization. To do otherwise would
be to degrade its verycapacity to endure.

LOUIS RENE BERES was educated at Princeton
(Ph.D., 1971) and is author ofmany books
and articles dealing with the Law of War. He has been aconsultant
on this matter in both Washington and Jerusalem. ProfessorBeres's
columns appear often in major American, Israeli and Europeannewspapers.